Apple iPhone 3G, MobileMe and more launched, India gets an iTunes Store

Apple, the company which is known for its Mac ( Macintosh ) range of computers and particularly for the iPod, had the whole of the Internet at the edges of their chairs. Every single soul, with even the slightest idea of what an ‘iPhone’ might be, was hooked to their computer screens, desperately waiting for updates from the company.

Yesterday was the big launch day for iPhone 3G. The second generation of the iPhone which brings features such as the Assisted GPS and 3G to the iPhone was made available for sale yesterday. The iPhone went on sale in New Zealand first, one of the 22 new countries where the iPhone was announced to be launched by Steve Jobs at the recent WWDC ’08. Let’s take a look how things shaped up for arguably the most awaited day on the InterWebs.

The iPhone was first announced on January 9th, 2007 at MacWorld, Apple’s largest event of the year. Like it is with every new product launched by Apple, there were extensive rumors and speculations about the mystery product, which went on for several months. The suspense was finally broken on January 9th, wheh Steve Jobs announced the phone, which sent the public into a complete state of awe. Here’s a video of the same.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhBbyaqE7Mg

The iPhone officially went on sale on June 29th, 2008, limited only to the US and locked to AT&T. Hundreds of customers lined up outside the Apple Stores that officially sold the iPhone. Some people event camped base outside the shops, wanting to be the first in the history books to buy the iPhone.

Seriously, Macboys are one crazy bunch of people. The original iPhone has since been launched in five other countries, including UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Austria. And apparently, it received the same response there too.

Of course, even though Apple decided to have the phone locked to a carrier in all the six countries, them hackers had the last say as usual. The iPhone was unlocked by them for every firmware that Apple sent out, a total of five times. These methods were obviously against Apple’s and AT&T’s Terms of Service, but, well, who follows them anyway. The phone went on to be available in various countries round the globe, selling for a price as high as Rs. 52000 in India when the first lot arrived.

Although immensely popular, selling over 270,000 units in the first  30 hours of launch, there were quite a few drawbacks and missing features in the iPhone. Lack of a good camera, no video-recording, no file-sharing, no MMS, no 3G were one of the many many missing features that people started complaining about. Apple claimed that 3G was left out because it uses up a lot of battery.

It took Apple almost a year to come up with the next generation of the much-hyped phone. The iPhone 3G was first announced on 9th of June this year. Again, the announcement was preceeded by rumors, speculations and millions of pages of discussions.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhBbyaqE7Mg

So what’s new in the iPhone 3G?

GPS, 3G, recessed earphone jack and a glossy plastic back with chrome buttons are the only changes that the iPhone 3G brings in, in terms of hardware. On the software front, iPhone 3G brings along the 2.0 firmware which enables the AppStore, enabling the user to download apps for the iPhone over the air. This feature, the AppStore is also available for the original iPhone.

The iPhone 3G was made available for sale in 22 new countries around the world, along with the 6 countries in was available in earlier. The phone is poised to be introduced in 46 other countries over the course of the year, India being one of them.

Now, it’s the events that have been taking place in the last couple of days that have been really interesting.

Apple updated the .Mac status page officially declaring that the .Mac to MobileMe transition will start from July 9th, 2008. Thousands of people flocked onto the Internet, wanting to glace a first look of the stunningly beautiful MobileMe interface. As people were busy wiping saliva off their keyboards, out came the news that the 2.0 firmware was available for download via a direct link. People reported that the link was the actual deal, some saying that it worked wonders for them. While a few got busy updating their phones, out came another source of news announcing that the AppStore was now accessible from the 2.0 firmware. People went haywire trying to try them out.

Even before the dust settled, Apple pushed iTunes 7.7 version via Software Update and then via direct download links on the site. It was then known that Apps from the AppStore could also be downloaded directly from iTunes Store. This however got me thinking. The 2.0 firmware was also going to be made available to the poor iPod Touch users throughout the world. To download Apps, you need to have a iTunes Store account. Sadly, the iTunes store was not available in many countries, including India. What about the iPod Touch users there? Were they left stranded? Even before the thought, “Could Apple finally launch iTunes Store for India and other countries?”, passed through my head, my RSS Feed Reader popped up announcing that iTunes Store was indeed made available to a lot more countries than before.Within minutes, I had my iTunes Store account ready to be used.Sadly though, no media content is currently available on the store. Only official apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch can be downloaded from the Store.

What was the best news of it all? 

Truly, the couple of days have been adrenaline-pumping to say the least. The true-to-the-core Macboy that I am, I made sure that I was in the midst of all the latest happenings. Having bought a .Mac account just recently, I, like the thousands others, wanted to take a glimpse of MobileMe. A variety of sites have covered and writtern about apps available for the iPhone. But this one particlar news about the iPhone 2.0 firmware completely blew me away.